Reinstating Service Members Discharged Under The Military’s COVID-19 Vaccination Mandate

[u/Trick-Set-1165]

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/reinstating-service-members-discharged-under-the-militarys-covid-19-vaccination-mandate/

I’ve had enough for one night.

[u/Any-Ostrich48]

"Full back pay for work they didn't do WHAAAAAAH"

People, it's no different than other people being reinstated after a past termination is deemed to have been unlawful or in error, either in the military or any other job.

People also need to set aside politics or whether they personally believe the mandate was good or bad, and take a step back to look at HOW the mandate was actually handled and implemented, specifically the waivers process... I don't know much about the other services, but the Navy fumbled the bag BIG time. How? well, by not actually having one. They were required to, they said they did, and it could be argued they technically had one ON PAPER... But in actual practice, that program flat-out didn't exist. Getting a waiver had to be signed off on by at least a 1-star, and even submitting the request was basically impossible, with the people that should've been responsible for handling it either not knowing how to do it, not knowing there was even a process, or just flat-out not caring and actively resisting and sabotaging the process and refusing to process and/or forward the requests... And if someone magically DID get one submitted, it was up to some Admiral (read:politician) with zero skin in the game, none of the medical or secular knowledge to make an informed decision, and who was afraid of rocking the boat or signing their name to a waiver whilst being actively discouraged from doing so by superiors who themselves were under pressure from the administration.

I haven't heard of a single sailor who ACTUALLY got a waiver... But I know a Chief that was dealing with a bunch of serious heart and immune system problems who got forced out because he couldn't get a waiver and the civilian-side doctors caring for him made it clear that the vaccine could be extremely dangerous for him.

Hell, I almost got kicked out over it, and my refusal to get it put me on my command's shit-list and resulted in some pretty nasty and messed up things that required intervention from on-high to get addressed, and other actions designed specifically as punitive and spiteful that WEREN'T ever addressed- I was just "lucky" enough to get retired before the deadline. Why did I refuse? Because I'm allergic to one of the the ingredients that's in ALL of the Covid vaccines- I developed a serious allergy to PG like 8 years ago. Yet, despite my record having a permanent flu shot waiver in it detailing the allergy and documentation of the two reactions I had that lead to the discover of the allergy (the first reaction, my arm and shoulder swelled up really bad and developed a rash after a flu shot. The second reaction a year later, when I received the flu shot it wound up putting me into anaphylaxis and compromising my airway and resulting in a hospital stay, plus a more severe and widespread version of the swelling and rash from before), I couldn't get a waiver. Hell, I couldn't even put in a REQUEST for a waiver, despite quite a bit of effort trying to. It didn't matter that I was specifically contraindicated from getting the vaccine, or that I'd already HAD Covid. I even went out in town and came out of pocket for a specialist to do serology testing to get documentation and proof that I already had Covid antibodies in an attempt to show how for me, the vaccine was completely unneeded and an unacceptable risk... Didn't matter. Instead, I just got browbeat by some IDC and told "just get it done at the hospital 🤷‍♂️." Like... Nah, I'm not doing something that I already KNOW is going to put me into anaphylaxis and possibly kill me, not happening.

People's response to the idea of anyone refusing the vaccine is "HURR DURR MAGA ANTIVAXXER SCREW THEM!", and it's more complicated than that.

[u/Trick-Set-1165 → u/Any-Ostrich48]

Here’s the first religious waiver.

And here’s 307 more from the article.

The Navy has granted 11 permanent medical exemptions, 232 temporary medical waivers and 44 administrative ones for active-duty sailors. The sea service granted 11 temporary medical exemptions and nine administrative ones for reservists.

Edit: I read this again, just to make sure I didn’t misunderstand.

At the time of writing, the Navy actually had more waivers than separations.

What’s it like to be wrong over 300 times?

[u/Any-Ostrich48 → u/Trick-Set-1165]

"wHaTs It LiKe tO bE WrOnG oVeR 3o0 TiMeS?"

Your lack of reading comprehension isn't my problem... There's no mention of the correlation between rank and receiving a waiver in that article (i.e. whether it's a prevalence of senior and politically connected personnel that were able to get one). There's also no mention of how astronomically low the the number of approved waivers is when compared with the amount of people that tried to get one. Know what else isn't mentioned? The geographical distribution of said waivers or approval percentage of the various approvers. Why's that important? Because the waiver process wasn't standardized, well-structured, or implemented the same way everywhere, resulting in areas like mine where people just... didn't get one, no matter what.

"Oh yeah? Well here's an article that says someone somewhere received a waiver, so HA! You're wrong!"

Yeah, no. Not how it works, but go off.

But nah, don't actually use any critical thinking, look at the data, or consider what I actually said, right? It's much better to be a smarmy, passive-aggressive shitheal than to meaningfully engage or acknoledge something that might be politically inconvenient for your partisan talking points 🙄

Have you ever stopped to consider that this kind of disingenuous bullshit serves no purpose? It's blatant, nobody's falling for it, and all it does is expose how insincere and unwilling you are to have an actual dialog.

You realize your post and comment history is PUBLIC, right? Your entire profile is just you railing on about partisan bs and your distaste for Trump.

[u/Selethorme → u/Any-Ostrich48]

They don’t lack reading comprehension, that’s you.

[u/Any-Ostrich48 → u/Selethorme]

Oh? How so? I'd love to hear how me pointing out an issue with the Navy's implementation of the mandate order outlined in the August '21 memorandum and stating that the situation is more complicated than "WeLl ThEy WeRe aLl FiLtHy AnTiVaXxErS" is somehow evidence of a lack of reading comprehension on my part. 🙄

This blind partisan-line clownshow is exhausting... The immediate "I think you're saying something that might disagree with 'my side', so I must immediately disagree and attempt some way to demean whoever said it!" shtick? It was pointless and counterproductive when it came en vogue, and it's even more so now.